Trouble Afoot

Mounties Seek Purloined Toe

October 12, 1986|By MIKE GOODENOUGH

TORONTO -- Mounties in the Yukon have a new assignment: Find Capt. Dick Stevenson`s big toe.

In 1973, so the story goes, the captain found the pickled toe in an abandoned cabin in Dawson City. He and two friends visited the El Dorado Hotel and, for reasons not entirely clear, dropped the toe into a drink. The curious cocktail quickly became a tourist attraction known as the ``Sour Toe Cocktail.`` Any beverage would do but, according to custom, the toe in the glass must eventually touch the drinker`s lips.

In exchange for this, the customer pays $5 and gets a certificate and membership in the Sour Toe Club.

The first toe was accidently swallowed, several replacements have been donated. The toe that vanished was actually a fourth-generation toe.

The digit was kept in salt in a small wooden box behind the bar. But last week some low-down thief pinched it and left two quarters in payment. Capt. Stevenson is offering $100 for its return or a replacement.

In a unique gesture, the ``entire people of Canada`` have been honored for helping refugees all over the world. The United Nations` High Commission on Refugees has awarded Canada the Nansen Medal, its greatest distinction for such aid.

Last year the medal went to American sailors who rescued Vietnamese boat people but it is the first time it has beeen awarded to an entire country. Between 1979 and 1984 more than 129,000 of the 553,000 immigrants who settled in Canada were refugees, most of them from Southeast Asia.

After a five-year study by 34 family doctors of more than 8,000 patients, a researcher from the University of Western Ontario has concluded that fat may be fitter.

Dr. Martin Bass says, ``Obesity is not anywhere as terrible a villain as people make it out to be.`` He found that overweight men with hypertension have only half as high a mortality rate from cardiovascular disease as lean men and only half the risk of stroke, congestive heart failure or kidney failure. However, these findings seem to relate only to men; a woman`s weight appears irrelevant.

For the first time since 1950, Montreal`s population has fallen below 1 million. It is still the largest municipality in Canada but Greater Montreal -- the city and 28 suburbs -- is smaller than Greater Toronto, which has about 2.5 milion people.

Transport Minister John Crosbie is the target of a $150-a-plate roast in Ottawa later this month. The money raised will go to wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen. One roaster will be Frank Moores, premier of Newfoundland, Crosbie`s home province. Says Moores, ``Crosbie is the perfect antithesis of Hansen. Rick is a consummate athlete and John has trouble getting out of his limousine.`` Meanwhile, Hansen, ``tired and sore,`` has reached the province of Quebec in his cross-Canada trek.

The high fashion designs of Yves St. Laurent were modeled for the first time in Canada last week, only the third time he had shown outside of France. In the Montreal audience was Pierre Trudeau, who had no date for the evening. However, gossips are reading something into the fact that one stunning Kenyan model wearing a bridal gown tossed him her bouquet.

Last month, things were not looking rosy for Mohammed and Nurani Samji. Their new house in Bramalea, Ontario, was burned to the ground by an arsonist. Last week, things took a turn for the better -- the Kenya-born couple won more than $11 million in a lottery. They will invest it all in Canada, and with interest that could give them $2,400 every day of their lives, they can live just about anyhere they want to.

And finally...Roderick Lewis wan`t going without a fight. The clerk of the Ontario Legislature is 75 years old and 10 years past normal retiring age, but he refused to leave his office even though a new clerk was hired last month.

He wanted compensation before he would budge and his payoff was what one opposition politician called ``outrageous.`` Namely:

-- A $220,000 lifetime annuity to raise his annual pension from 38,400 to 60,000;

-- $118,000 in severance to cover vaction pay;

-- A ``stipend`` of $31,000 a year;

-- An office and secretary to help him write a book;

-- A chauffeured limo to take him to and from the office everyday;

-- Continution of an undisclosed hospitality and meal allowance.

He got the lot!

The Liberal government had little choice because Lewis was given a lifetime contract by the Conservatives in 1974.